


Close For Comfort (the Getting Some Distance remix)

by pressdbtwnpages



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/pressdbtwnpages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Growing up, Lee thought it was an open secret. That everyone knew “your father is never home” was a euphemism for “your father is frakking Uncle Saul.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Close For Comfort (the Getting Some Distance remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Close For Comfort](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2997) by The_Plaid_Slytherin. 



> A million thanks to sabaceanbabe for beta-ing this!

Sergeant Hadrian is waiting for Lee after his CAP rotation. He barely has his helmet off, isn’t entirely out of the cockpit yet when she asks, “Do you have a minute, Captain?”

Lee feels his flight suit sticking to him, thinks of the shower he’d like to take, of Starbuck sitting up in sickbay bored out of her skull. They can wait.

“Sure. What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

Hadrian looks distinctly uncomfortable as she leads him to a quieter part of the hangar bay. “Have you heard about the explosion?”

Lee has not. So Hadrian briefly summarizes that a Cylon snuck aboard and killed himself and four people. She is clearly disappointed when Lee doesn’t react to the news that Cylons look human now.

“Thank you for the update, Sergeant,” Lee says as kindly as he can, “but why are you talking to me about this?”

Hadrian bites her lip and looks around shiftily. It is decidedly out of character for the generally composed Master-at-Arms. “Well, sir, your father, the commander, he called me to his quarters to ask me to investigate our security measures. I got there a couple of minutes early, and I happened to overhear-”

And all at once Lee knows where this conversation is going.

Growing up, Lee thought it was an open secret. That everyone knew “your father is never home” was a euphemism for “your father is frakking Uncle Saul.”

Then Zak died and at his funeral Kara reached for his father, gripped his hand hard, and to avoid thinking about anything real Lee started to think about his father standing alone. About the ring on his father’s left hand. About Ellen Tigh’s sleeping around, how she was never Aunt Ellen the way he was Uncle Saul. About how the women on base brought his mother casseroles when the divorce became common knowledge. No one brings “I’m sorry your husband’s in love with another man” casseroles.

He’ll never know now whether his mom knew the truth.

“The hatch was shut, sir,” Hadrian is saying. “But I’m trained for security. There were sounds of a scuffle and then I overheard a bit of conversation. Colonel Tigh said, um, it was Colonel Tigh in the room, sir, he said ‘You've got blood on you’ and the commander told Tigh it wasn’t his. Tigh said it didn’t matter, that the frakking toaster almost blew him to smithereens-”

“ _Is_ my father okay?” Lee interrupts. He figures she would have led with that if he weren’t, but Lee needs to be sure.

“Yes, sir. He’s fine. That’s what he told Tigh. And then he said... Well, sir, he said ‘Get off me. We're on duty.’ Then there was some more scuffling and the commander and XO talked about how many more Cylons could be hiding in the Fleet - I didn’t really understand that part at the time - and it seemed as good a time as any to announce my presence.”

“Um, alright. What would you like me to do about...” _About the fact that my father has been frakking his oldest friend for at least the last 20 years_ “the situation?”

Hadrian looks confused. Like she thought telling Lee would be a revelation or a favor. Or maybe it’s just that he happens to be the third officer in the chain of command after the two men in question and he should know what to do.

“I thought you might talk to them,” she says and then blushes like she’s starting to realize what a ridiculous position she has put Lee in. “I-I don’t know, sir. I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Hadrian.” Lee dismisses her because he isn’t sure what else there is to say.

*

When Uncle Saul used to visit, Lee's father was always first to the door, alive with a rare burst of enthusiasm. He gripped his war buddy like a drowning man holds a flotation device. Lee has always known - since he was old enough to be aware of those sorts of things - that friends don’t touch each other the way his dad touches Uncle Saul. The way Lee touches Kara.

*

Kara gives him a small smile when he walks into sick bay. She's obviously bored out of her mind.

"Hey," she greets. "Did you hear about the excitement?"

"You mean the bombing?" There are burn victims on either side of Kara's bed, and some draped lumps that can only be corpses waiting for Cottle's attention.

"Yeah. Didn't you just get off CAP?" she questions. "How'd you hear about it so fast?"

"Hadrian." Lee is debating telling Kara the story. He trusts her with his life, with his secrets and his father's secrets. But all it would take is Tigh picking at her at the wrong moment for the situation to explode.

Kara sits up in bed. "What did she want? Did CAP go alright?"

Her concern surprises him. He wonders if he is really as obvious as she makes him feel.

"CAP was fine. The sergeant just wanted me to be aware of something."

"What?" Kara asks and then she slumps back down into her pillows. "Never mind, it’s probably none of my business."

Lee finds that he really, really wants to tell Kara. To let someone in on the secret he's kept for more than half his life.

"Since when has that stopped you?” Lee teases. “It's just that it involves two people on the ship and -"

Kara bursts out laughing. "Is this about Boomer and the Chief?"

" _What_?"

Kara's eyes go wide and she winces. "Um, nothing. Tell me about your 'situation'."

Now that he thinks about it, Lee can believe that Boomer and the Chief are having a not-so-secret affair. He feels guiltily obligated to put a stop to it now that he knows about it, but the news isn't terribly surprising.

"It's about my dad and Tigh," Lee tells Kara quietly, aware of how many ears there are in sickbay. "Hadrian overheard them talking. About personal matters..."

Lee hasn’t given her much to go on, but he trails off, hoping Kara can put the pieces together for herself.

"Ohhhh," she says as she gets it. "Wow, really?"

"Yep."

"You don't seem surprised," Kara notes.

"I'm only surprised that they got overheard. It's been going on for a long time, Kara."

Kara bites her lip, brow furrowed. “How long?”

Lee shrugs. “I don’t really know. Since I was a kid, at least. For awhile, there, when I was about twelve, Uncle Saul visited a lot. Every other Wednesday, he and Dad would go out in the afternoon and not come home until morning. Zak and I got a ride to school those mornings instead of taking the bus.”

“He wasn’t at Zak’s funeral,” Kara says softly.

Lee knows. He’s been angry at Tigh for a long time for that.

“He couldn’t come, Kara. The Galactica couldn't spare her commander _and_ her XO. Although, part of me has wondered if Tigh just couldn't face my mother and me after everything.”

“Your dad needed him, Lee! You remember that day. I was with him, there was no one else but some girl he barely knew to comfort him.” The condemnation in Kara’s voice is for Colonel Tigh, but Lee hears her judgment of him, too.

“Come on, Kara. If Tigh had been planetside, you’d have hated him and never agreed to take a posting on the Galactica,” Lee points out.

“And you hate me a little bit for that, too.”

“I don’t hate-”

“Lee,” Kara says patiently.

He sighs. “I don’t hate you, Kara. And if you hadn’t been here, you’d have been somewhere else and probably dead now. So I guess I owe Tigh a thank you note.”

Kara laughs, loud and bright.

She tries to stifle a yawn and Lee remembers that she's still hurt and healing. He wants to ask her what he should do about confronting his father and Tigh, but that’s an unfair burden to place on her. Instead there’s something else he has to ask.

"Kara," Lee begins, feeling bad that he even feels the need to say this to her, "you can't say-"

She grips his arm hard but comforting. "I wouldn't do that to you. Or the commander. ...Or Tigh."

"I know. I just had to..." Lee shakes his head. "Thank you. I should let you rest. I have to go tell them that they've been overheard."

Kara winces sympathetically. "Have fun with that."

"Thanks."

*

Maybe Lee doesn’t understand his father’s relationship with Saul Tigh because Lee's never had a war buddy. Or because his war buddy is Starbuck and the rules are different for a guy and a girl. Maybe he and Kara are exactly the same as his dad and Tigh, and that's not a road Lee is prepared to go down right this minute.

*

Lee doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it, but he’s just remembered that Uncle Saul always brought gifts -or bribes, as Lee bitterly considered them as a teenager- candy or a bouncy ball or something nice like the model Viper Lee kept in his apartment on Caprica when he still thought there would be life after the military.

*

When he catches them both on an off shift, Lee sits his father and Saul Tigh down and succinctly summarizes his conversation with Hadrian for them.

"Lee," Adama says weakly once Lee has finished. "I can explain."

"That's not necessary." Lee's voice is colder than he means it to be. After all, the epic love story of Bill Adama and Saul Tigh doesn't matter that much in the long run. "It's not new information to me."

He gets that it’s the military, that it’s hard enough that the Commander and XO of the Galactica are best friends, but they’re not going to be court-martialed for breaking frat regs at this point.

"Son..." His father sounds stricken and Lee can't help chuckling.

"I've known for so long that I thought everyone else did, too."

"Zak? Your mother?" The commander's voice is shaky.

"I guess we'll never know what they knew. It's not like we gossiped about it around the dinner table."

"Lee." His father glances at Tigh and then looks back to him. "I'm-"

Lee doesn't want his father's apologies. He doesn't need them, and he finds he feels bad for Saul Tigh sitting there stiff-backed, waiting for his lover to betray him for the ghost of his family.

Uncle Saul stopped being Uncle Saul right around the time of the divorce. He didn't come around anymore, stopped sending birthday cards. Lee figured that told him all he needed to know about where his honorary uncle's affections lay, and it wasn't with the Adama boys. Still, Lee finds he has a soft spot for the cantankerous old man.

"What should we do about this situation?" Lee asks, but it's not really a question. "As the third in command do I relieve you of duty and send you both to the brig? Do I discharge Tigh and send him out into the fleet because we cannot do without our commander? Do I force you to go public and revise the frat regs?"

Lee hasn't had much time to think about any of this. He wishes he'd had a chance to brainstorm with Starbuck, but he didn't and here he is, the two highest ranking officers in what is left of the Colonial Fleet sitting there staring at him like chastised children.

"Sergeant Hadrian is a good soldier," Tigh says, speaking for the first time. "We can trust her to keep her mouth shut.”

"Is this your first deployment?" Lee snaps in disbelief. "We're on a battlestar! _Everything_ comes out eventually."

"What people don't know won't hurt them,” Tigh grumbles.

"But it _is_ hurting them, Saul,” the commander objects. “We can't keep enforcing regulations we don't intend to follow. The frat regs probably do need upgrading in light of social changes, if that's what you want."

It's not homosexuality that's the issue - the 12 Colonies have fought that battle and come out on the side of it doesn't really matter who you frak, so long as they're not made of metal - so much as the fact that the commander and XO of what is left of the entire military have been having an affair for years.

It hits Lee all at once that his father thinks he's blackmailing him to.. To what? Clear a path for him and Kara? As if frat regs are the real obstacle in their path.

"I'm not blackmailing you," Lee says slowly, still full of disbelief. "I'm an officer of this ship coming to you because of a problem that has presented itself. I'm open to suggestions for a solution."

"We'll end it," Saul says abruptly, standing. "Done, over, never happened."

The commander goes pale and clenches his fists but doesn't say a word.

Lee shakes his head. "Sit down, Uncle Saul."

"Lee?" Tigh asks, but he follows the order. Lee can't remember the last time Saul called him by his given name.

"How many years has it been?" Lee asks, even though he doesn't want to know the answer. "You're just going to quit instead of standing up for each other? If that's the case then you both need to report directly to the brig because we have cowards commanding this vessel."

Neither the commander nor the XO moves.

"I've recently been made aware of another violation of regs," Lee says carefully, recalling Kara's earlier words. "It may be time to reevaluate the rules."

The commander stands. "You and Saul put together a task force to take a look at this matter. We'll proceed further based on the group's findings. Dismissed."

Lee tries to give his father the benefit of the doubt. The commander is embarrassed and relieved and doesn't like situations there are no way out of. But Lee still feels like he's being punished for doing his father a favor and he resents that.

*

As Lee well knows, there are very few secrets on a battlestar. He hears things about the goings on of the security tribunal. How the Chief and Boomer's relationship has been exposed, how the deck crew lied for them. He hears how Hadrian threatened the commander - but not as aggressively as she could have, hears how she never crossed that line. Lee hears how his father kicked the independent tribunal formed on his orders off of the Galactica and knows that his own taskforce will never actually get off the ground. They're all going to continue to live in the murky twilight of work and fighting attraction until someone gives, something breaks beyond the repairing of it.

Months later, Helo brings his pregnant Cylon aboard and Lee wonders if he is the only one who hears the decisive snap of a way of life shattering.


End file.
